[Reader-list] Bhopal Gas - Letter to US President with endorsements

Avinash Kumar avinashcold at gmail.com
Thu Jun 17 12:14:56 IST 2010


From: Vinod Raina <vinodraina at gmail.com>

Date:
Subject: Bhopal Gas - Letter to US President with endorsements

Following is the letter with the list of endorsements till 16th
evening, when it was sent to the US president.

A few persons have questioned making demands on the US President and
not on the Indian rulers and officials. This letter is an initiative
of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) and its close
allies. For 26 years, this victim organisation has been confronting
the Central and MP Government, medical and scientific establishments
and the concerned ministries on streets and courts, in Delhi and
Bhopal. This letter is not a 'one off' affair - the victims have also
engaged the US establishments on previous occassions - the US and
Indian establishments are both complicit in the denial of justice and
compensation. With the looming Nuclear Civil Liability Bill trying to
legalise the unjust Bhopal approach to perhaps even bigger disasters,
the Indian government will certainly have to be resisted, but global
forces pushing such an approach, mainly located in the US, will also
have to confronted. The US President's position vis.a. vis BP is
contrary to both the Bhopal gas and the Nuclear Bill approaches, and
the international community as well as all of us in this country, we
think, should highlight this contradictory and duality of approaches,
with the view that Bhopal is not repeated, and Bhopal victims rights
are recognized nationally and internationally.

As part of the ongoing resistance to the national government's
approach to compensation, after dharnas, long marches, petitions to
the PM, CM and others, rejection by the Relief Commissioner and the
High Court to reopen the compensation issue, the victims have finally
been able to have their legal petition admitted by the Supreme Court.
This is a ray of hope for reopening many issues with the national
government, US entities, and on the legal front. The petition admitted
in the SC is attached so that many of you who have expressed the
desire to see action nationally may organize support for it - in ways
that you feel expresses your viewpoints best. BGPMUS is not funded by
institutions or foundations - either from this country or abroad. If
you think that your support and solidarity could come in the form of
donations in fighting this present case in the Supreme Court, please
let us know at this email id and we shall inform you of the details
for doing so.

Many endorsements came from list serves we are not members of - please
do circulate this mail to the lists you wrote to earlier. On behalf of
the gas victims, we thank you all.
We understand and even share the cynicism/pessimism of some about the
national ruling class and what to expect from it, but the gas victms
don't have the security and luxury to live with such cynicism and
pessimism. As their will to resist for over a quarter century has
shown, hope is their sole motivator, however irrational it may seem
from outside.

In peace and solidarity,

Vinod Raina         Abdul Jabbar

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mr. Barack Obama
President
United States of America


Dear Mr. President Obama,

With a great deal of interest, we have been following your tough stand
against British Petroleum for the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico,
particularly your demand to know whose 'ass needs to be kicked'. We
think your demand for corporate accountability for causing huge
environmental damages is worthy of emulation by other governments
around the World.

May we draw your attention to a bigger disaster that took place in the
city of Bhopal in India in December 1984 that has officially killed
over 15,000 people (about 25,000 people unofficially) and seriously
injured nearly half a million people by now (the situation after
twenty five years is attached for ready reference). This disaster was
caused by another mega corporate entity called Union Carbide,
headquartered in the United States of America, unlike BP whose parent
company resides in Great Britain.

Through 'friendly' interventions of the Reagan administration that
ruled the US in 1984, not only was Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union
Carbide sent back from India even though he was arrested and cases
were registered against him and the Union Carbide, but similar
overtures resulted in all criminal cases against Union Carbide to be
dropped in a shameful out-of-court settlement for a paltry US$470m.
Twenty six years later, the local court in Bhopal, fettered by these
collusive legal manipulations could at best convict six Indian
officials of the Union Carbide India Limited for two years of jail,
for which all the accused were given instant bail. The parent company
based in the US, against whom charges exist in Indian Courts, is
unanswerable. So no one pays for the death of over 15,000 people!
Another major US corporate, Dow Chemicals, that bought Union Carbide
in 2001, refuses to accept its liability for cleaning up the toxic
wastes at the closed factory, that is still harming citizens of
Bhopal, mainly from water that is contaminated with leached poisons
stored in the abandoned factory; or liability for just compensation to
the victims.

 We are of course more than aware that the Indian Government and the
Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide (UCIL) are as complicit in this
disaster as the US government, the parent company Union Carbide
Corporation and Dow Chemicals. For twenty six years the stricken but
surviving gas victims of Bhopal have waged a sustained battle with the
Indian establishment – governments at the center and in the state of
Madhya Pradesh, scientific, medical and industrial monitoring
institutions - in courts and streets, and will continue to do so. But
the subtle pressure of the US administration, contested alien tort
laws of the US and the discriminatory legal functioning of the US
system that puts a higher cost to a US life than that of in Bhopal has
made it necessary for the victims to fight on both fronts - the US and
the Indian administrations, corporations and judicial systems - for
over a quarter of century now.

 It is well documented that the UCC is a guilty party since it
deliberately exported a  defective plant whose safety systems were
grossly lacking compared to the parent plant at Danbury, West
Virginia. The UCC also hid facts about the toxicity of
methyl-isocyanate, while it was aware about its deadly effects. The
guilt about these criminal acts requires the US judicial system to
act; just as the inability of the Indian inspectors to check these
shortcomings requires the Indian judicial systems to book the
culprits.

Is it too much to expect that you use the same yardsticks of
accountability you are using for BP for the terrible oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico, for corporations based in the country you rule? Whose
'ass' should the citizens of Bhopal kick if governments selectively
shield their corporations and officials from legal accountability? How
would you react, for example, if because of the pressure of the
British media that is asking Prime Minister Cameron to ‘stand up’ to
you, Mr. Cameron made a 'friendly overture' to you to back off from
'kicking anyone's ass', meaning British Petroleum's? If you wouldn't
back off, then consistent with your stand, the citizens of Bhopal and
the whole World demand from you that:

1. You signal/order that judicial processes be allowed, both in the US
and India, to take

    their course in fixing responsibility of corporations and
individuals of the US,

    responsible for the Bhopal carnage; dismantling the manipulative
obstacles put up in

    these intervening years. This is crucial to restore the subverted
system of justice.

2. You set processes in motion that make Dow Chemicals own up their
responsibility for

     liabilities, that includes cleaning up the toxic mess that
resides in the closed factory

     they now own. Any assurances to the contrary that they might have
received from

     some Indian Ministers acting individually are laughably
irrelevant and illegal.

3. You work with the same sense of collaboration with the Indian
government on this

     issue to provide justice and proper compensation to Bhopal
victims, that you proclaim

     you have achieved with the Indian government on the issue of
'global terrorism'.

Just as the US administration has demanded from the BP that it set up
an escrow fund of US$10b for compensation pending legal settlements
arising out of the oil spill, we demand from you to ask the erstwhile
UC, Dow chemicals and the judicial system of US to reverse the
out-of-court Bhopal settlement, and deposit amounts commensurate with
the deaths of over 15,000 persons and half a million injuries in
Bhopal, and process the extradition of guilty people immediately.

In anticipation of a prompt response and decisive action,



1.   Abdul Jabbar    -     Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan
(organisation
                                      of Bhopal gas victims)

2.   Dr. Vinod Raina  -  a resident of Bhopal continuously working
with the gas victims

                                      since the time of disaster

3.   N.D.Jayaprakash -  Co-Convener, Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh
Sahayog Samiti,

                                      Delhi

4.    Mukul Dube - Editor, Writer; New Delhi
5.   Rohini Hensman

6.   Anand Teltumbde; Committee for Democratic Rights, Mumbai

7.   Mathew Thomas

8.   Dr. Arif Ali Syed

9.   Akif Khan

10. Dr. Vandana Shiva – Environmentalist

11. Kunal  Chattopadhyay, Professor, Jadavpur University, Kolkatta

12. Soma Marik, Associate Professor in History, RKSM Vivekananda Vidyabhan

13. Aditi Bhaduri, Independent Journalist

14. Sukla Sen, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai



15. Sankara Narayanan, Bhubaneswar



16. Dr. Vandana Prasad, Public Health Resource Network



17. Enakshi Ganguly, Child Rights activist



18. Shabnam Hashmi, Social Activist



19. Jagmohan Singh, Voices for Freedom



20. Sujata Patel, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad

21. S.Faizi, Environment Expert, Thirivavantapuram

22. Praveen Kumar, M.Phil(FT), Dept.of Education, Delhi University

23. Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Human Rights activist, Delhi



24. Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha, Chhattisgarh



25. Rabin Chakraborty



26. Fr Ronnie Prabhu SJ, Mangalore



27. Aseem Chatterjee



28. Uday Prakash, Germany



29. Dr. N. Raghuram, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biotechnology, GGSIPU, Delhi



30. Ramesh Babu Batchu, Royal Oak, MI USA



31. Prof (Dr.)K L Chopra, Padma Shri, Former Director , IIT ,
Kharagpur & President,

      Society for Scientific Values



32. Ravi Pathak, Research Fellow, MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND FUNCTIONAL

      GENOMIC LAB, G.G.S.Indraprastha University, Delhi



33. Arun Kumar Mishra



34. Madavan Vasudevan, Applications Manager, Genomics & Bio-IT,

      Genotypic Technology Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore



35. B.Venkatram, Hyderabad



36. Harsh Gupta - student of IIT Kanpur



37. Reva Yunus, Indore



38. Prof. Sahadeva Sahoo, Bhubaneswar



39. Ambarish Rai, Convenor,  Public Campaign on Common School System



40. Sachin Jain, Bhopal



41. Prof. Badri Raina, New Delhi

42. Rosemary Viswanath , EQUATIONS, India

43. Feroz Mehdi, Alternatives International, Montreal, Canada

44. Babu Mathew, ex Director, Action Aid India, Bangalore

45. Dr Walter Fernandes, Director, North Eastern Social Research
Centre, Guwahati



46. Pradip Baksi.



47. Mukul Sharma, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University,
Bangkok, Thailand



48. Shaheen – a resident of Bangalore, India



49. Ashok Chowdhury, NFFPFW, Dehra Dun



50. Hamouda Soubhi, FMAS, Morocco



51. Harsh Mander, Member, National Advisory Council, New Delhi



52. Mahtab Alam, Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR)



53. Harsh Dobhal



54. Feroze Mithiborwala



55. Jagori Bandyopadhyay



56. Prakash K Ray, Cinemela Collectives



57. Prof. Jandhyala Tilak, NUEPA, New Delhi



58. Prof. Alok Rai, Delhi University



59. Javed Akhtar, Poet/Lyricist, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)



60. Prof. N. Panchapakesan, ex Professor of Physics, Delhi University



61. Santanu Chacraverti, Kolkata



62. Pradip Chatterjee, DISHA, Kolkata



63. Jyotirmoy Samajder, Kolkata



64. Prof Mushakoji Kinhide, ex vice - Rector, UN University, Tokyo



65. Prof. Lau Kin Chi, Lingnan University, Hong Kong



66. Dr. Mira Shiva, People’s Health Movement



67. Sayantan Dasgupta



68. Shobha Srivastava, Kolkata



69. Premangsu Dasgupta



70. Vikramjit Singh, Research Associate, Bioscience, Unilever
Research, Bangalore



71. Arun Bidani, New Delhi



72. Kabir Arora, Indian Youth Climate Network



73. Naaz Khair



74. Ms. Roma, National Forum of Forest People and Forest workers.



75. Arun Kumar



76. Rohit Prajapati, Activist, Gujarat

77. Trupti Shah, Activist, Gujarat



78. Sheema Mookherjee, New Delhi



79. Udaykumar Ranga, Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit
                                      Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for
Advanced Scientific Research
                                      Bangalore



80. Apurva Bamezai, IFPRI-New Delhi



81. Vivek John Varghese



82. Nirotpal Mrinal, CDFD, Hyderabad



83. Ashwin John George



84. Akanksha Malhotra



85. Sunila Hooda, GGSIPU, Delhi



86. Ajit Kembhavi



87. Kishore Jagtap



88. Dheera Sujan, Amsterdam

89. Sarba Raj Khadka, RRN, Kathmandu, Nepal

90. Madabhushi Sridhar, Professor, NALSAR University of Law Hyderabad

91. Jyoti Punwani



92. Urvashi Jain; Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi



93. Tapoja Chaudhuri - Member, International Campaign for Justice in
Bhopal, Seattle

                                      Chapter. USA.



94. Sudeshna Basu, Kolkata



95. Anand Patwardhan, Film maker, Mumbai

96. Chandan Das Sarma

97. Subhashish Mukhopadhya

98. Bhaskar Gupta

99. Prabir Chatterjee

100. Kumares Mitra



101. Asia Pacific Movement for Debt and Development, Manila



102. Jubilee – South America



103. Jubilee South – Global (a coalition of over 200 social movements
all over the world)



104. Mamta Munish



105. Vaibhav Raaj, Delhi



106. Prof. Ohashi Masaki, Keisen University, Tokyo, Japan



107. Rashmi Paliwal, Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh



108. N Anil Kumar













cc: 1. Prime Minister of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh

      2. Mr. P. Chidambaram, Convener, GoM on Bhopal


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